Book Review: 7 Lessons For Leading In Crisis

Last month I attended (and blogged about) the World Business Forum in New York City. The evening before the event, Bill George (who was attending the WBF as both a blogger and a speaker) hosted all of the bloggers for the purpose of getting to meet one another. I discovered that Bill had recently authored a new book: 7 Lessons for Leading in Crisis. It took a few weeks but I finally had the chance to read one of the copies he handed out that night.

One of the most important things about the book is the context in which it was released:

• The financial crisis had reached dangerous levels towards the end of 2008.
• Bill's book is about "leading in crisis", and was published in 2009.
• Bill served on the board of Goldman-Sachs during the crisis.
• The book contains numerous examples of leadership behavior (both good and bad), some of which occurred during the current financial crisis.

The book suggests a list of seven leadership qualities that can be applied to any type of crisis. Bill sprinkles a variety of examples throughout the book.

I was mainly drawn to the book by Bill's position on the board of Goldman Sachs. In this sense he had a front row seat to the crisis. How often does someone in his position also have the writing skills to communicate what went wrong on such a massive scale? I was hoping that the book would contain the same frankness and openness that Bill uses on both his own blog and as a NY Times blogger (in which his transparency leads to some lively debate).

I was not disappointed in this regard.  Bill pointed at several different banks that went under during the financial crisis and called out examples of poor leadership.  During the pages of the book he did not pull any punches; this was the type of frankness I was hoping for.

Overall Thoughts on the Book

At just over 100 pages, the book is a quick read. The seven different leadership qualities that Bill covers seem to me to be common sense: don't take the world upon your shoulders, get ready for the long haul, dig deep for the root cause, etc. (For a quick summary of each category, I refer the reader to Jessica Lipnack's book review here).

I don't believe that Bill's seven tenets of crisis leadership are revelatory. From that point of view, I don't believe that I learned significantly new techniques for leading during a crisis.

I find the book's main value is that of a yardstick. If I want to evaluate my own leadership skills during a crisis, the book is an excellent place to turn. If I want to evaluate a public official, or a corporate executive, and formulate a thoughtful opinion of their performance during a crisis, I would refer to this book.

One particular chapter resonated the most for me: Lesson #3 - Dig Deep for the Root Cause. The advice that Bill gives in this chapter had a strong synergy with my write-up of Bill's speech from the World Business Forum. Leaders need to spend at least some time in the trenches. Here are a couple of gems from the book:

• Morgan Stanley CEO Philip Purcell didn't spend enough time on the trading floor talking to the traders when his firm was going through a myriad of problems in 2004 (he should have)
• Maintain close contact with people throughout your organization, not just your direct reports.
• Visit customers when they are in crisis (Bill had one angry customer throw medical equipment at him)
• Wander through the corporate offices and labs and ask the employees what they think the company needs to do to improve.

Overall I enjoyed the unique point of view on the financial crisis, as well as the framework for evaluating leadership. It's a good reference book to keep handy during tough times.

Steve

http://stevetodd.typepad.com

Twitter: @SteveTodd

EMC Intrapreneur

Comments

[Marc West]

Thanks for the review it makes an interesting read,

Personally I believe that a crisis is simply a lack of awareness as to the level of thinking; it is no more real than any other psychological perception.

The key reason is behavior does not drive behavior; it is driven by the unconscious values of an individual or culture.

At some point these values are going to be in conflict and will become superseded, once this occurs there is a change in the level of understanding which we call complexity once this becomes dysfunctional we call it a crisis.

As Einstein said a problem cannot be resolved from the same level of thinking that created the problem in the first place.
He didn’t say use the same level of think to resolve the same level of crisis.

By the mere implication that it is being called a crisis means that it not being understood, it’s like saying something is a problem.
In fact throwing the same behaviors at it will possible just recreate the crisis.

Our current model of thinking is: A + A = R
Where A equals Actions and R equals results. We believe that by throwing more resources and changing our actions it will resolve the crisis.

I would offer that an epistemological model of thinking that would best suite is:
O + A = R where O is Observer (level of awareness), A equals Action and R equals Results.

It’s only when we start to change our observation that we can learn new actions that lead to new results.
For this reason I believe that key behaviors and values are required that meet the new world values system.

I set out to define a new set of evolving behaviors in my new eBook which I believe provide a greater resolution for new the level of perceived crisis's

Marc West
www.joyfulleadership.com

[twitter.com/stevecunningham]

Steve - I completely agree with your assessment. This is nothing ground shattering in the book - except that it's the entire roadmap for how you deal with a crisis. It's a pretty simple proposition, but the devil is in the details and the execution. I think his advice around having a support system to deal with crisis is well worth the price of the book.